Seòmar agus comataidhean

First, the process itself has been exceptionally valuable, with significant levels of participation across the sector. It is a continuation of an approach that was taken during the Covid pandemic whereby having regular discussions with representatives from across the culture and arts sector meant that we were able to understand the themes, needs, interests, concerns and expectations of people in the sector. Obviously, during the pandemic, much of that was linked with the extreme circumstances of the lockdown and the income difficulties that individuals and organisations faced in the culture sector.

Now, we have obviously moved on, and organisations are able to perform and tour and people are trying to bounce back from the pandemic. A broad range of themes is emerging that still needs to be brought together in report form. We will, no doubt, be able to share that with you and other committee members. As you might expect given the range of participation, from individual freelance performers or people involved in other aspects of culture and the arts all the way to larger organisations, a very broad range of issues is being flagged up, which are reflective of the underlying factors. Incidentally, I should say that I also held a meeting with the national performing companies last week.

This is about how organisations can continue to operate in circumstances in which there is a squeeze on their income because they have perhaps not yet fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels in relation to the number of ticket sales or visitors. There are also the additional costs of heating overheads and inflation.

As we know, at a national level, inflation is officially at just over 10 per cent. However, we are hearing from participants that inflation in many areas that impact directly on culture and the arts can be a factor of that—I have heard figures of inflation of up to 30 per cent impacting on organisations. As one might imagine, those participants that have property—theatres and the like—have significant overheads that are squeezing their finances.

On top of that, some participants are reporting that other income streams that have traditionally played a significant role in their finances are also being impacted. The amount of financial support through philanthropy, for example, is proving challenging for some organisations.

Public funding is also of huge importance to the culture and arts scene in Scotland, as it is in most countries in the developed world. As we have discussed at committee before, one often hears the request for individuals and organisations to have the greatest possible certainty. We hear a lot of support for the intentions of the Scottish Government to support multi-annual funding horizons for individuals and organisations, which is the direction of travel that we are on.

A very strong theme that is coming back from all the meetings is that the culture and arts sector wants to work collaboratively through these difficulties. There is an appreciation that things will not improve in the short term, given the economic circumstances, and there is a willingness among those in the sector to consider what they can do. No doubt suggestions will also be made about what we, in the broadest sense—that includes the Scottish Government, agencies such as Creative Scotland, Screen Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland, and all the different stakeholders—can do to make sure that we get through this most extreme of circumstances, having protected and supported our culture and arts community.

One factor, which I have been hearing more of and on which we all need to reflect, is people saying that it was personally hugely challenging for them to get through the pandemic. Funding was available for that period, but, with the UK Government now ending that support, one hears people say that their level of personal challenge remains acute because of the uncertainty about the medium and longer term.

We need to reflect on the pressures under which people are operating and the responsibilities that they have to themselves or to small or larger organisations. Everybody is cognisant of examples—I have seen some recently—of beloved organisations and venues finding themselves in existential financial difficulty, which is obviously making others concerned about what the future holds for them.

As soon as we work up a read out from those round-tables meetings, I will ensure that the committee is able to see it; together with the evidence that you have taken here, that will help your deliberations and ours.

Yes. That is constantly being worked on by culture officials, including in discussions with other parts of the Scottish Government.

There has been significant budgetary instability, if I can call it that, given the events of the past year. In particular, there has been tremendous budgetary instability in the UK Government. Given the constraints on us, and given that instability, one must make sure that, if and when one moves to multi-annual funding rounds, people can depend on the projections of their funding situation.

Given that instability and those constraints, it is understandable that more work needs to be done in that area, because, for the people who have been mentioned already and for many others, it is going to be a very important development—for the better, I hope. As I am sure that you have heard in evidence, many people who run extremely effective and efficient organisations have to spend what they view as a disproportionate amount of their time every year making funding applications and considering how to maintain their organisations. We understand that.

However, it would not be responsible to change from the current funding model to a new one until we can say with absolute confidence how that will work and what it will provide, and give people the certainty that they want. I want Mr Cameron to understand that we are committed to doing that. As soon as we are able, I will be happy to update the committee on how we will do it.

I am extremely keen to give the sector the assurances that, understandably, it has asked for, so that it can focus more on what it is supposed to do—delivering for our national cultural life—and perhaps spend less time on the annual cycle of financial applications and reviews.

I can speak more about the world cycling championships than I can about the athletics ones, but I will ensure that we update Mr Ruskell—who, if memory serves me correctly, asked a question about them at a previous committee meeting. He is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that the Scottish Government is making significant financial contributions to the world cycling championships.

For those who are not aware of that event, I note that it will take place in Scotland. This is the first time that there has been an event of its kind. It will bring together the disciplines that exist in cycling as a sport, which will take place at the same time in different venues in different parts of Scotland. The event is going to be larger than the Commonwealth games, which is amazing. It will happen this year, and a lot of thought and effort are going into ensuring that there will be genuine community benefit and societal impact in encouraging people to get on their bikes. I confess to the committee that I may need to follow that injunction a little bit more myself.

I chair the board that brings everything together, so I am closely involved in the event and I appreciate how big it is. Anything that can be done to magnify and support the understanding of it as an event that is taking place in Scotland would be much appreciated.

With regard to the specifics of the athletics event, I am joined by Rachael McKechnie, who works for the Scottish Government on the events side of things, and she may want to add to my comments. I am happy to write to Mr Ruskell. I appreciate that has made a point about why, if it is a GB event, the Scottish Government might be carrying substantial costs. I will update him on the situation in that regard.

We are involved in sporting events with the UK Government in other contexts. For example, the Euro 2028 bid, together with other home nations, is an area in which we are working with the Governments in London, Cardiff, Belfast and Dublin, and I think that we are making progress there.

I agree with Sarah Boyack that—I said this in my answer to Donald Cameron—bringing in innovation as quickly as possible is part of the solution to how we move from where we are currently to a better place where we have introduced other funding streams.

Incidentally, as I think I have mentioned to the committee previously, there is also an opportunity for greater coherence in philanthropic support for culture and the arts. There are tremendously generous individuals, trusts, organisations and private sector companies that do an incredible amount to support the arts. That is another area in which we need to work together across agencies, with Government and the philanthropic sector. For example, with the national companies, which have been mentioned, we can work on what we can do to support international and touring efforts.

There is a wide range of ways in which we can help and support. Some of those will require finance, but some will not, because they relate to the convening power of Government or agencies such as Creative Scotland, which need to think anew about how we do things. One of my biggest takeaways from speaking with the sector in the round-table meetings that I mentioned is that there is an understanding that doing nothing is not an option and that we will have to face up to the scale of the challenges.

I fully acknowledge Sarah Boyack’s point about Creative Scotland’s spending constraints, and what she said about reserves not being a long-term solution to such spending constraints. One challenge that we have picked up on in conversations with artistic organisations is that they have been spending their reserves and, when one is trying to proceed through a storm, it is a challenge if one’s ability to use reserves is denuded. However, without making the same point at great length again, we are not in normal financial circumstances, so we are going to have to find a way through the storm, and I am sure that we will do it. There are a lot of good examples of the innovation that is happening.

Incidentally, I should say that I am interested in hearing from others who face similar circumstances, and I was pleased to finally meet with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for the United Kingdom, Michelle Donelan, who is my opposite number, a few weeks ago. She faces many of the same problems in her portfolio areas in relation to the funding of culture and arts and the same pressures, which people will be aware of, such as theatre closures in England, because of the same financial challenges, the post-Covid impact and so on.

I am keen to work with colleagues not only in the rest of the UK, but further afield. Are others taking approaches that we can learn from? Alternatively, we may be doing things that we can share. I am keen to work in a collegiate way with colleagues, and I am happy to support the culture sector’s call with regard to the Treasury’s tax treatment of theatres and other venues. I discussed that matter with Michelle Donelan, and I have subsequently written to the Treasury to underline how important it is in the current circumstances that, when tax decisions are made, they do not worsen the situation.

Where it is possible to work together, I am absolutely up for doing that, and I am doing it. Where there are more opportunities to learn from elsewhere, I am keen to do that as well.

There is a very strong case to be made that some of the biggest impacts might be felt through the endangerment of the smaller and smallest organisations. You mentioned a semi-rural community where there is a much smaller population, and that organisation might be the only arts and cultural outlet in that small community. If it was to close, there would be nothing.

Is that a serious situation? Absolutely—of course it is. It is therefore absolutely right that the Government is doing everything that it can for the directly funded national companies, that Creative Scotland is doing everything that it can for the regularly funded organisations, and that we are both doing what we can for the smaller organisations for which we have responsibility.

There is also a local government dimension to this. There is funding and support for culture from local government, and we are seeking to work more on that with our colleagues in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. For example, my culture minister colleague Neil Gray has been meeting culture leads.

We need to be cognisant of the value and the importance of art for art’s sake—I have now said that twice, because it is so important—but I think that we all agree that the economic and broader benefits that we have been talking about are the prize in linking culture with the wider governmental and societal benefits of mainstreaming culture. Going backwards is obviously not a good thing, so I am seized of ensuring that we have the time to consider where there are particular risks or warning mechanisms around particular groups or organisations, and the kinds of intervention that can be made to reduce those risks.

Will that be successful in all cases? I hope so, and I am certainly minded to work very closely with our colleagues in Creative Scotland and local government to make sure that it is.

The first thing for me to say is that it is important to have an open mind about all those things. I certainly do, and I know that Creative Scotland is updating its funding approach, so I am sure that people there will have listened to the points that you have made. If there are particular suggestions, I encourage you and others with an interest in the matter to take them up directly with Creative Scotland, which has the responsibility. For understandable reasons, we have an arm’s length between Government and the funding of particular projects, who prioritises what one thinks is important and the relative value of all those things.

You talked about screen. I am struck that there have been some amazing box-office successes in big-budget film productions in Scotland in recent years. That is tremendous. It is a good sign of the ending of market failure in the screen sector here and a move in a positive direction. However, it is particularly heartening to note the success of more independent and smaller-scale productions at present. I give “Aftersun” as an example, which was voted best film of last year. It was supported by Screen Scotland. It was perhaps not considered by some to be a traditional box office-type film, but it was tremendous nonetheless.

There are benefits from having more screen output produced in different parts of Scotland. At present we can see—well, we can see it at any time, I suppose, because we can stream it—“The Rig”, which was shot in Leith. “Mayflies”, which is a tremendous BBC production by a Glasgow-based production company and a cutting-edge Scottish author, was, significantly, filmed largely in Ayrshire.

One great thing about screen going in the direction that it is going in is that it is getting to a scale where it goes beyond the studio space that we have and is filming in locations that are not traditionally film locations. That gives significant economic benefits to the areas where those projects take place. Screen Scotland and Creative Scotland absolutely think about how we can support culture and the arts right across Scotland, not just in larger population centres or where particular facilities are concentrated, and they are thinking about that at present.

Welcome to the brave new world—

I completely agree with you, convener. This relates to 47 years of safeguards right across the policy areas that matter to people in every single part of Scotland—indeed, in every part of the UK. This might have seemed like a dry political process until now, when we know that it is likely to go ahead. We now know, from the evidence that you have been given, that this impacts on legislation that matters, from food safety to biosecurity to safeguards around human rights and common pay. The list is very long.

Most of us around the table would agree that we have safeguards and among the highest standards in the world because we were a member of the European Union, and that those standards are the best in the world. The policy of this Government is to remain aligned with those safeguards and standards, and that is exactly why we will do what we have to do. It is not the route that we would have chosen to go down, but, if we have to do it, we will do what we need to do to give people in Motherwell, Wishaw and everywhere else in Scotland the confidence that, in Scotland, we want to retain the highest level of safeguards and regulation in relation to people’s personal safety, the safety of food, the provision of services, human rights and equality, pay—I will be here for the remainder of the day if I go through a full list of all the areas where European legislation has been so important. That is what we will have to do to make sure that we protect all those safeguards and regulations, and it is what we intend to do. It would not be necessary if the UK Government did not push this legislation through or at least amended it so that it would not apply in Scotland. The UK Government has chosen not to do that.

I have relied on the evidence to the committee and have read it in some detail in order to be fully apprised of where various sectors of the economy are on the matter. Government officials have regular communications with all forms of representative organisations, but the committee has had very thorough discussions with various sectors and with people who have significant understanding of the legal situation. That has been extremely helpful.

For context—we might come on to this, but I will say this, just in case we do not—it is important for me to put on the record how important timing is and how important it is that we all understand what has happened in the past two to three weeks. Since the arrival of the new Prime Minister, there has been a rethink on a number of United Kingdom Government policy approaches. We saw that with the U-turn on the mini budget by the previous Prime Minister, Liz Truss, and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng. We can see news today about the UK Government U-turning on policy on renewable energy in England.

In the past two to three weeks there has been a very active discussion in Whitehall about whether the UK Government should shelve the bill entirely. That has led directly to intervention by interest and representative groups—from the UK Trades Union Congress to the Institute of Directors and many others besides—in a letter that was sent to Grant Shapps and reported in the Financial Times.

At that point, the Scottish Government and colleagues in the Welsh Government decided that we would make a joint approach to the UK Government, underlining our previous approaches and saying that the bill is back to front—that it is wrong, it is disproportionate and it is not the right way to proceed. Even if one thought that revocation was a good thing in principle, the bill is not the right way to do it.

That is all important because we can look back on developments in the past few weeks and, sadly, draw the conclusion that the UK Government has decided that it will go ahead with the earliest sunset date, as was planned by the previous Government. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and all the interest groups and organisations, and despite the vote in the Scottish Parliament on the subject, the UK Government has decided to proceed.

The window of opportunity for the bill to be shelved or forgotten about after having been at the House of Lords has now passed. It is important to put on the record that we are now dealing with a bill that will go forward. In the UK Parliament committee stage, amendments that would have protected Scotland’s position on retained EU law that had been drafted within the Scottish Government were voted on. They were supported by members of the committee from the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party but were opposed by Conservative Party members. That, in effect, protected the bill’s course through the parliamentary process at Westminster.

That means that we are looking at the worst-case scenario. Any thought that we had of the bill being amended to limit its impact on Scotland has been blocked in committee. There is no longer any thought that it might be shelved or withdrawn, or that we might have a later sunset deadline, with the Scottish Government’s and Parliament’s ability to protect European Union law being spread out over a long period. The evidence to the committee is absolutely clear that there is a big danger, because of the compressed timeframe for managing the process, that we could miss things or legislate in haste.

We find ourselves—the Government and the committee—facing the worst-case scenario, with the bill. I have no doubt that it will lead you to ask another set of questions, but it is important to have set the scene for the committee so that we all understand where we are with the bill. We now believe that it will go ahead within the shortest possible timeframe and without any amendments that are proposed by the Scottish Government being accepted at Westminster by the UK Government.

I will have to defer to colleagues on what we are hearing from UK officials. However, I think that are working on the basis that we will have to ensure that things do not fall off the earlier cliff edge rather than the later. We will always make arguments for things happening later. The Scottish ministers do not have powers over that—UK Government ministers have those powers.